


College is Not an Asher Roth Song

by DeliberateMisspelling



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Happy Ending, M/M, POV Outsider, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:11:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeliberateMisspelling/pseuds/DeliberateMisspelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zack knows he loves college. He's pretty sure he loves his boyfriend. He's not sure at all why some douchebag named Derek hijacks his boyfriend's bed all the time, but he sure as hell knows he doesn't like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	College is Not an Asher Roth Song

**Author's Note:**

> Ahm. I wrote this a while back and had ideas about expanding it, and then promptly forgot about it. I stumbled across it in my fic folder a few days ago and decided it worked just fine as a one shot. Because there's never enough college AU, you guys. Never.  
> Also the lovely WhatTheHale is willing to look over my HS AU, so be on the lookout for that soon? Hopefully. I'm still real dubious about it.  
> Regardless! Gratuitous college AU ahoy! Enjoy!

“ _Why_ does Derek need all this help, then? Why’s it always you?” Zack demands, and a shadow flits across Stiles’ features. Zack sees it, catalogues it, and feels his mouth twist in recrimination. Zack knows Stiles, and he knows that’s the face he makes when he’s caught. When Stiles has argued half-truths and lies of omission against probing questions and he’s been forced into a corner where he’s going to outright lie, but he’s not exactly happy about it.

“It’s not my place to tell you about that,” Stiles murmurs softly without meeting Zack’s eyes, “I can’t, Zack.”

It might be the truth, but it’s certainly not the answer to Zack’s question.

“Bullshit,” Zack spits, crossing his arms over his chest, “I have the right to know about why your ex is _sleeping in your bed_ all the goddamn time!”

“He’s _not_ my ex!” Stiles blazes, “How many times am I gonna have to explain that? Derek is my _friend_. We’ve been friends for a long time, we’ve been through _a lot_ , and he needs my help from time to time, just like I need his!”

“You have _my_ help,” Zack insists, “Whenever you need it, or me, or anything! You shouldn’t be calling Derek when the Jeep gets a flat, and he shouldn’t be _in your bed._ ”

Stiles is just so _evasive._ He always has something to say, something to counter Zack’s arguments, and it’s always just on-topic enough to veer their conversation in a different direction. Zack has never seen anyone steer an argument so well before, and it took him _forever_ to pick up on it. Now that he has it’s all he sees, and it pisses him off.

“First of all, the assumption that I can’t change a tire is frankly offensive. Second of all, if I called Derek to help me change a flat, he would lead with thirty seconds of silence and then hang up on me. Third of all, it’s not like I was in it with him!” Stiles retorts, gesticulating vigorously and narrowing his eyes, like he’s the wronged party in this situation.

“I’m not a moron, Stiles,” Zack informs him flatly, making Stiles huff.

“I wouldn’t be with you if you were, Zack. But you have to _trust me_ ; there isn’t anything like that going on with me and Derek!” Stiles counters with a fond, exasperated earnestly that Zack wants so badly to believe in.

“Then what is going on with you and Derek? Because it’s not nothing, Stiles. You get a call from him, and you get this look on your face like the world is ending, so buckle the fuck up. And inevitably I find him hanging around your dorm room the next day looking worse for the wear and you hovering around halfway to a panic attack. I get told that it’s nothing, that Derek just needed a place to crash, _again_ , and you guys are going to go get breakfast, and see you later babe. Meanwhile, Derek stares at me like he’s wondering how well my pelt would function as a bathmat until you drag him out of the building and into that _pretentious_ fucking car. When you come back, sans Derek, we have this fight. Every _time_ , Stiles, after the first ten times I kept my mouth shut. And you _never_ tell me anything!” Zack accuses, and feels his stomach twist up when Stiles’ opens his mouth to fight back and then just shakes his head, smiling ruefully.

“I really fuckin’ like you, you know,” Stiles tells him like it’s too goddamn bad, like Zack has failed some sort of test,  “Lots of reasons I like you are because you’re so smart. You need answers, I can’t give them to you, and I’m sorry, but that’s all there is to it.”

Stiles doesn’t do any of the things Zack expects. He doesn’t duck his head while dragging a hand through his hair, or shuffle his feet and let his eyes drift away, or shove his hands in his pockets and offer an apologetic smile. Stiles crosses his arms over his chest and looks at Zack levelly, prepared to serve up a calm, flat “no” to any rejoinder.

“What are you mixed up in, Stiles?” Zack reaches out, lays gentle fingertips on Stiles’ wrist where it peeks out from the crook of his elbow, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“Are we forever, Zack?” Stiles questions determinedly, and Zack startles because Stiles will always have the ability to surprise him when he least expects it; quirky adorable little pest that Stiles is. Zack just didn’t expect this to be the moment that Stiles dropped the jokes and asked a serious question genuinely.

“Are we?” Stiles demands, “Because Derek, Scott, Allison, Lydia, Isaac and _everybody else_ I would let stay with me whenever they needed? They’re forever.”

“I don’t- We could be,” Zack tries, because they could. He could picture himself facing the rest of his life next to Stiles, but he _hasn’t,_ really. Zack isn’t the kind of twenty year old that worries about forever. Somehow he missed that Stiles apparently is. Stiles flashes another remorseful grin.

“I think you should go, Zack,” Stiles murmurs, and Zack _knows_ that’s the end of the conversation. When Stiles loses all his exuberance and defiance and there isn’t a logical discussion to be had. There’s just the way that Stiles won’t talk anymore, that Zack can’t convince him of anything, that Zack might as well leave because Stiles won’t hear anything he has to say anyway.

Instead Zack just kisses Stiles, because he’s not ready to be asked about forever and then unceremoniously dumped.  Stiles makes a soft noise against his mouth, and then tangles his fingers into Zack’s hair. Zack angles himself towards the skinny dorm bed and walks backwards tugging at Stiles’ hips. Stiles follows, matching his steps until the backs of Zack’s knees hit the thin plastic mattress and fold. Stiles comes down hard on top of him and for a while Zack doesn’t have anything to say.

 

* * *

 

Right up until Stiles’ phone goes off at 3:26 a.m. and Stiles scrambles frantically to dig it out of the pocket of his jeans, Zack thinks he can salvage things. Maybe get Stiles to tell him _something_ , or at least force him to come up with a new placating platitude.

Instead Stiles takes one look at the caller id and swears softly under his breath.

“Shit,” Stiles tumbles off the bed and shakes out the jeans he’s still clinging to with one hand, “I gotta go.”

“Derek?” Zack arches an eyebrow sardonically, and Stiles stumbles getting his foot through the waistband off his pants. He catches himself, barely, on the edge of the dresser.

“Don’t do that,” he chuckles halfheartedly, finally managing to wiggle into his jeans.

“Do what?” Zack asks dryly as he peels himself off Stiles’ sheets and starts rummaging around for his own clothes. Stiles stills suddenly, sobering as he finishes tugging a t-shirt over his head.

“That,” Stiles grunts, jerking a move towards his shoes, “All deadpan with the eyebrows and no time for my bullshit. Just, please don’t do that.”

“Stiles,” Zack reaches for his wrist again, because _Christ_. How is it that he’s the one getting the shit end of the stick all the way around, no answers and then no boyfriend at all, and Stiles still manages to make him feel guilty without even really trying?

“Zack I have to go,” Stiles snaps, yanking his wrist free and snatching his keys off his desk, “Lock up on your way out.”

Stiles shuts the door quietly on his way out, because he’s considerate of the strangest things sometimes, and Zack is left to try to get one of his socks down where it’s gotten caught between a tile and the frame in the drop ceiling.

 

* * *

 

 

Zack gets his sock down, but he doesn’t leave. He feels a little creepy about it, maybe. He’s just sitting around in Stiles’ dorm room _waiting,_ without Stiles’ express permission to be there, but he can’t bring himself to lock the door behind him and call it quits on their relationship.

Of course, when he’s dozing just as the wan grey light of early morning starts creeping through the cheap venetian blinds and Stiles comes bursting back into his room hauling a half-passed out carcass in a shredded leather jacket and absolutely _covered_ in blood and what looks like liquid tar, Zack regrets his decision a little bit.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Zack manages, scrambling as far back on Stiles’ bed as he can get and tucking himself into the corner when the body with questionable style choices turns out to be Derek, bleeding sluggishly from a freakish looking bullet wound in his side just above his hip.

Stiles’ doesn’t pay him any mind, tugging on Derek’s limbs until he’s sprawled out on the floor and pushing at tattered clothing until the hole in his side is exposed. There are black tendrils spreading along the map of Derek’s veins away from the wound, and for a split second Zack thinks it’s an incredibly intricate, creepy as fuck tattoo that happened to get shot in an unfortunate spot. Then the lines move, grow out across Derek’s abdomen and leech up towards his ribs.

“ _What the fuck_ ,” Zack repeats, and starts to think that Stiles can’t even hear him, too busy rummaging around in Derek’s pockets for something.

What he comes up with is a lighter, making a small noise of success before delving into his own pockets and fishing out a bullet. Stiles attempts to pull the bullet apart with his teeth, making Derek chuff a disbelieving laugh from the floor. It sounds wet, and Zack winces at it.

“Shut up,” Stiles hisses, pressing the palm of one hand over bullet hole and bearing down, “No laughing at me until this is over.

Derek opens his mouth to reply but Stiles has spun away, rising from his knees to dig around on his desk until he comes up with a pair of pliers and a small flat blade screwdriver.

Stiles mumbles to himself as he works the bullet open, still hunched over his desk with his back to Derek and utterly oblivious to Zack’s presence in the room.

“Shouldn’t he be in a hospital?” Zack asks faintly, trying to reach for the rational part of his brain, “Stiles, did you _shoot him_?”

“Shut _up_ ,” Stiles grinds out again, and this time it seems directed at Zack, even if Stiles doesn’t appear totally conscious of whom  he’s speaking to.

It takes some doing, but finally a soft grunt of “Aha!”  has Stiles spinning and dropping to the floor beside Derek again in one graceless motion. He upends the bullet and dumps a small pile of... something? Zack can only assume gunpowder and god knows what else, onto the tile floor beside Derek.

“Ready, fuzz-butt?” Stiles flashes a cheeky, manic grin and prods Derek in the stomach. Derek doesn’t answer, but the black gunk in his veins is steadily winding its way up Derek’s torso to his chest.

“Fuck, _Derek?”_ Stiles pokes him again, harder this time, with his other hand flicking the lighter frantically. Zack is about to leap forward to grab his wrist, tell him ‘No!’ because playing with gunpowder can only end in tears, when the pile goes up and shoots out a rather dazzling array of purple sparks. Zack rears back again, but Stiles just scoops up the mound of ash and _crams it into the hole in Derek’s side_.

“Stiles! What the **fuck**!” Zack yelps, finally lunging forward just as Stiles scrambles back and Derek’s body arcs up off the floor like he’s in _The Exorcist_ for fuck’s sake. Zack tumbles off the bed and lands practically in Stiles’ lap. Stiles, who jumps six inches straight up like a startled kitten, nearly sends Zack sprawling over Derek. Zack recovers himself, barely, and finds his face up close and personal with the hole in Derek’s side. The hole, which is swiftly closing itself up and pushing the remains of a bullet out of Derek’s flesh as the black swirling through Derek’s skin retreats hastily. The crunched metal almost hits Zack in the nose as it pops free of Derek’s skin and the wound closes over completely.

“No, _seriously though,_ what the FUCK!” Zack scrambles back again and Stiles rushes forward to take his place, digging the heel of his hand into the spot that had been a bloody, gaping _bullet hole_ five minutes before.

“Shit,” Stiles breathes out shakily, crouched over Derek and still wholly ignoring Zack’s existence, “That never gets less traumatic, does it?”

Stiles is almost laughing, a hysterical edge to his voice, and Zack twitches to put a hand on his forearm, his shoulder, but instead Derek lifts one seemingly heavy limb, wraps his fingers around the back of Stiles’ neck, and squeezes once.

“’M all right, gimme a minute,” Derek grunts, and Stiles shoulders sag in relief.

“Oh, my God. You unbelievable _asshole_ ,” Stiles grouses, pushing at Derek’s side and bringing his free hand up to rest over Derek’s on his neck.  It’s this, the easy affection and the way Zack can see all the lines of Derek’s body leaning into Stiles’ presence, that finally seals the evening for Zack.

“Nope,” he announces loudly, floundering off of Stiles’ bed and mostly-accidentally kicking Derek in the thigh, “Nope! Let’s pretend like I left at 3:30 this morning like you asked me to, and I definitely locked the door on the way out, and I certainly didn’t see a dude with superpowers, and if _anybody_ asks, I broke up with you.”

Stiles makes a perplexed, surprised noise as Zack bangs his way out of the room, but doesn’t follow. For once, Zack is glad of it. He’s got a half a bottle of shitty vodka in the door of his mini-fridge calling his name.

 

* * *

 

A month later Zack sees Stiles launch himself out the doors of the science building and into Derek’s arms, wrapping long legs around Derek’s waist and ordering “Take me home, wolf-boy!” Derek just laughs and cards a hand through Stiles’ hair before heading in the direction of Stiles’ dorm.

Huh, Zack thinks. Werewolves _would_ explain a lot.


End file.
